


Merry but not exactly Bright

by Xero_Sky



Series: Max Will Not Be Your Reindeer [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Attempt at Humor, Everybody Lives, Fluff, M/M, Waffles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:46:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8870947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xero_Sky/pseuds/Xero_Sky
Summary: A year after the unnecessarily dramatic events of "Tidings", on the edge of another Christmas, Chuck makes a terrible discovery.Or, nobody's happy, but at least Max is there to provide adult supervision.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A few weeks ago, someone said something to me about a Pacific Rim fic exchange for Christmas. Or something like that. I'm being vague because I can't find any trace of it now, because my head's been in a vague sort of place for awhile. However, that note was what triggered this new, sort-of Christmas fic, so thank you very much, whoever you were!

Chuck woke up.

Something was fundamentally wrong.

He was cozy, in a tangle of warm blankets, but he was in the middle of a cold bed, and that was just fucked up.  In a sane and just universe, he’d earned the right to wake up every morning next to the human heater he meant to marry in about six weeks. 

There was no sound of the shower, or anything that made him feel less than completely alone, and with a sigh, he rolled out of bed and fixed bleary eyes on the clock on the dresser.

Not even four yet.  Great.

Yawning, he wrapped Raleigh’s robe around himself against the morning chill.  It smelled good enough to distract him for a moment, but there was no putting it off.  Time to go see where his fiancée had ended up after he’d given up on sleep.  Raleigh had easily the worst nightmares of any of them, and finding him curled up on the couch with the TV on wouldn’t exactly be a surprise.

The couch was empty, though, and there was no sign of anyone else about.  He checked the living room and the rest of the house, but the whole place felt empty, and cold.  The Christmas tree they’d somehow managed to get from the lot to the house without casualties stood dark and still undecorated in the corner.  There were two half-empty cups of coffee on the kitchen table, and Raleigh’s keys were gone from the hooks near the door.  A look out the window told him that Raleigh’s truck was gone, and a quick call confirmed what Chuck suspected – Raleigh’s phone was off as well.

He swallowed down the pang of disappointment. Raleigh had gotten up some point last night, that was clear, and, given how badly the man usually slept, it wasn’t much of a surprise, either.  Thing was, he’d never actually left the house in the middle of the night before, not even after a fight.

_Fuck._

Chuck must have done something last night to drive the poor sod right out of the house.

Goddamned painkillers. 

He’d fucked his back up yesterday, moving the furniture around for the tree, and he’d gone down hard last night after reluctantly taking a dose.  He had… a history with painkillers.  He _did_ things he didn’t remember later.  He _said_ things.  Back in the day, that hadn’t mattered much, because he’d been in Medical if he’d needed anything that heavy, and they’d known better than to let him out of their sight.  Since the war those particular side effects had eased off as the tremendous stress he’d been under ended, but he’d still rebuilt the engine of Herc’s bike one night, and after the last surgery, he’d started taking the stove apart before Raleigh caught him.  He didn’t remember any of it, but there were pictures, thanks mostly to Yancy. The impromptu maintenance wasn’t the worst part of it, though.  He talked _a lot_ under the influence, about all manner of things, and that was what he was really afraid of.

If Raleigh had flat out left, what the _hell_ had Chuck said to him?

He stopped in front of his dad and Yancy’s room, tempted to just pull the elder Becket out of bed and find out where his brother was.  The ghost drift between Yancy and Raleigh was at least as strong as that between the Hansens, and Yancy should at least have an idea what was up with his brother, right?

Unfortunately, neither his Dad nor Becket Senior were fond of wearing clothes to bed, and while Chuck was nearly immune to the sight of his dad’s ass by now, he had no real desire to see any more of Yancy than he had to.  It wasn’t the prosthetic leg, by any means.  It was the fact that he and Raleigh had the same scars, just reversed and on the other side of their bodies, and it was 100% uncomfortable to see the scars Chuck had mapped so many times with his fingers and tongue on a different man.  Awkward wasn’t even the word for it.

So he called Yancy instead, but he couldn’t hear the ringer through the door, and there was no answer either, because fuck his life.  Yancy must be off with Raleigh, which was not a good sign, because Raleigh hated waking his brother up at night and he usually did whatever he could to avoid it.  His nightmares did it often enough, and though Yancy never blamed him, it upset Raleigh.  A lot.

The ruckus woke up Max often enough that his dog had mostly abandoned their room for Herc’s.  Chuck responded to them almost automatically now, coming half-awake to soothe him back to sleep.  If the dream had been really bad (and the really bad ones were usually variations on the same one), he would hold Raleigh tight and tell him that none of it was true:  Yancy wasn’t dead, he’d just lost much of his leg, and Chuck had lived, because of _course_ Strike had had escape pods. (Why wouldn’t it?) Most importantly, perhaps, Chuck had _never_ hated him, even though they’d fought when they first met.  Raleigh’s dreams stripped him of everything that mattered most to him, and they were beyond cruel.

But he’d never just left before.

Chuck retreated to the kitchen, trying to calm himself so he didn’t wake Herc up over the drift.  He really didn’t want to be explaining himself right now.

So now what?

He fidgeted in the silent kitchen, in his silent house.  He had no idea what he’d done, how much damage he’d caused, or what to do to fix it.

With that thought in mind, he set about making breakfast, because that was a thing he could do, and it might possibly be somewhat constructive.  In any case, he just wasn’t made for standing around, with his hands empty and his mind full of terrible possibilities.

Maybe it would do some good when Raleigh got back.

First he scrubbed everything spotless, then pulled out flour and eggs and assorted ingredients so that he could stare at them longingly, hoping for an idea.

Eventually, he grabbed a couple of things and a bowl, vaguely imagining waffles in his future.  Raleigh really liked waffles, with cinnamon and vanilla and maple syrup or fresh whipped cream, and ungodly amounts of bacon; that generally worked out because the man rarely ate more than breakfast and dinner and something right before midnight.  Chuck had tried to help him get back on a normal schedule, but he wasn’t much of an expert on normal, was he?  This was probably the closest thing to a normal life he’d ever had, waking up with his lover every morning, learning to freaking cook, of all things, and fighting considerably fewer monsters than he’d been used to.  He had no idea how he’d go back to his old life.

Chuck had no idea what he’d do without Raleigh, if it came down to that.  There wasn’t a single thing about his life now that wasn’t better for having Raleigh in it, except the part about being stuck with Yancy for eternity, and he wasn’t ready to give it all up just because his future brother-in-law was mostly an arsehole.

Musing on this, it occurred to him suddenly that he was using baking soda instead of baking powder, and that no recipes he was aware of required egg shells in the mix.

_Fuck._

He needed to pay attention to what he was doing and stop brooding about what he couldn’t fix.  Couldn’t fix _yet_.  Because he definitely was going to fix it.  Absolutely.

He poured the crunchy mess down the disposal and sighed, hanging his head and trying to get his shit together.  Christ, things were easier back when he was just infuriated by the Beckets and had himself halfway convinced that he hated his dad.  He’d only had Max’s feelings to worry about, and Max could be bought off with a rawhide and a good belly rub.  Raleigh might also conceivably enjoy a belly rub, but the rest of it wasn’t that simple.

He could do this, though.

He and his dad did most of the cooking, with Herc handling all the savory sorts of things and Chuck specializing in breakfasts and baking.  He liked the science of it all, the chemistry of simple things and their reactions to each other under heat.  It probably wouldn’t have kept his interest for too long, though, if he hadn’t discovered the Becket family addiction to all things even vaguely pastry-related.  Waffles were only the beginning.

He was rifling through the pantry again when he suddenly flushed with heat and cold and a sense of damp.  It wasn’t him, and he realized that Herc must be in the shower, or just getting out of it.  Goddamned ghost drift.  He and his dad tried to give each other as much privacy as possible, but the connection never actually went away.  Thank fuck it wasn’t the kind of telepathy the media liked to go on about or he’d have lost his mind completely by now.  The low-level pulse of emotions, physical sensations, and a general sense of _being_ was enough.  He didn’t need to know more about Herc’s sex life than he already did.

Fortunately for his train of thought, he found the baking powder almost immediately and dived back in to the process of making amends.

*******

Herc Hansen was an expert at getting up hours before he wanted to and doing his best to function afterwards.  All his years in the military hadn’t done a damned thing to change him from a night person to a morning person though, and no matter how mentally sharp he might be at zero-bright-hundred, he’d never mastered looking like it.

Even now, after a hot shower, he lurched into the kitchen like one of the undead, hollow-eyed and unshaven, with what was undeniably Yancy’s robe wrapped around him like it was the only thing saving him.   Chuck regarded the ghastly apparition of his father solemnly, then gestured at the coffee maker with an elbow before going back to whatever he was doing.

Herc got himself a mug of life-giving coffee and leaned back against the counter, watching his son.  Chuck had apparently just finished up with grating fresh cinnamon, and he was carefully measuring it into a large bowl of batter.  Vanilla came next, that appallingly expensive shit he insisted on, and after that was beaten into submission, the whole batch was put aside next to that ridiculously expensive waffle iron he’d gotten when he’d sussed out the Beckets’ addiction.

Waffles.  Shit.

From the looks of things, he was also preparing to make fresh whipped cream to top them off with.

He waited until Chuck took a breather, stepping back to survey his work in progress, before saying anything.

“So what’d you do?”

Chuck instantly scowled.  “Why do you always think I did something?”

“Because Yance couldn’t sleep last night, and he got up after midnight without coming back. Raleigh’s truck was gone when I let Max out just now, and you’re in here working up a sweat making his absolute favorite thing to eat, after a round of painkillers,” Herc answered calmly, ticking each point off on his fingers.  “Don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes for this one.”

Chuck slumped in defeat.

“I don’t remember a thing after sitting down on the bed last night.”

“Nothing at all?”

Chuck just shook his head solemnly.  “Y’know how it is when I’m off my head, yeah?”

“Fucking hell.”

“Yeah.”

They contemplated the oncoming apocalypse for a few moments in silence before Max scratched at the kitchen door to be let back in.  The dog seemed offended as he shook the frost off his feet, looking at them reproachfully.  He’d scratched at the back door for an unreasonable amount of time before having to resort to the kitchen door, and this was obviously unacceptable.

He waited for them to figure it out and apologize lavishly, but Herc only gave him a few scritches, while Chuck just smiled at him.  What kind of crap was that? 

Something stupid must be afoot.

Well, whatever.  He wasn’t getting any younger.  With a huff, he trotted over to his bed and laid down, resting his head on his paws so he could keep an eye on them.  Apparently someone needed to.

“Great.  My dog is judging me.”                                       

“Always has, always will,” Herc said, finally kneeling down to give Max suitable attention.  “You need help with that?”

“Wanna do bacon?”

“You have any idea when they’ll be back, or are you just hoping this lot will keep?” Herc asked, rummaging through the refrigerator for the bacon.  They had some, he was sure.  It’d been almost six months since he’d finally stopped pretending he didn’t live here, and there was always bacon.  Always.

“I’m hoping they’ll just turn up once it’s on the table, to be honest.”

“Magic, then?”

Chuck brandished a spoon at him.  “There is no proof that Beckets can’t be summoned with sufficient waffles.”

 _Christ, I hope so_ , Herc thought, but he wasn’t ready to say anything like that out loud.  This whole morning had caught him flat footed.  He had no idea what he’d do without Yancy now, and he hadn’t even really considered it since they’d gotten together.  He and his Becket had known each other for years before he’d caught sight of Yance in Sydney one day and had his world rocked. He hadn’t seen him in months, and the beaten-down, exhausted man who’d limped into Hong Kong at his brother’s side had turned into a swaggering, confident man with a lethal sense of humor.  Herc hadn’t had a chance, and he’d been fucking grateful for it every day since.

The Beckets were as close as the Hansens were, each pair in their own fucked up, post war, neo-telepathic, probably brain-damaged, family way.  He wasn’t surprised at all that Yancy had gotten up to help settle his brother down last night; the ghost drift would’ve woken him up, and his new leg only took a moment to get into.  Of course he’d gone.  It had happened before.

They hadn’t actually left the house in the middle of the night without a word, though. 

Whatever this was, it wasn’t actually Chuck’s fault, he was sure of it, but if it cost him Yancy somehow, he might have to strangle his offspring anyway.

Pity.

*******

The waffles were done and in the warming oven, next to an almost obscene amount of bacon, and the kitchen smelled amazing.  Chuck was in a comfortable argument with his Dad over the Wedding again, which they’d somehow allowed the PPDC’s PR department to turn into an Event, requiring a year of planning, when Max lifted his head up and barked.  The less-gifted members of the family finally picked up on the sound of tires on the gravel outside, and a heavy silence fell between the Hansens, who eyed each other grimly.

Chuck took a deep breath and then wiped his hands on a towel, trying to look a little more presentable.  Herc ran a hand through his hair, not that it made much difference, and re-tied his robe.

Max briefly considered getting up to bark at the door, but it wasn’t like he didn’t already know who was there, even though neither Becket said a word as they opened the front door, took off their jackets, and then walked toward the kitchen.  In the quiet, you didn’t need to be a dog to hear any of those things.

Chuck ran over his mental checklist of apologies again, hoping he’d be on target with at least a couple of them.  It’d help if his goddamned brain would cooperate for once and let him remember what he’d done.  Or said. 

_Fuck._

Raleigh looked terrible, like a man who hadn’t gotten any sleep at all, possibly ever.  Chuck couldn’t help but notice that he was still wearing his pajama pants, tucked into his boots.  He didn’t project the air of a man enjoying his life, and Chuck winced, certain that it was mostly his fault.

Christ, the poor guy had enough to deal with, without Chuck around to make it worse. 

He squared his shoulders and did the right thing.

“Look, honestly, I don’t remember what I did, but whatever it was, love, I am so sorry.  The pain pills had me off my head, and I swear, if I hurt you, I didn’t mean to.”  The words started coming out in a rush, and he deliberately tried to slow down.  “Whatever I need to do to make it up to you, just tell me. Please.”

Raleigh stood there, just looking at him, his face blank.  He blinked a few times and cocked his head to the side, obviously confused.  He shot a glance at Herc, but the man was stoically waiting for Raleigh to say something.

“I, uh…  What’d you do?” he asked tentatively.  He sometimes had blank spaces in his memory, especially after a bad night, but he didn’t think he’d blank out on something that had Chuck so upset.  The man was so earnest and unhappy that Raleigh mostly just wanted to grab him and hold on for a while.

Despite what most people thought, he and Chuck almost never fought seriously, possibly because they snarked at each other constantly.  From the looks of it, this was a disaster, and he didn’t have a clue.  He wasn’t even sure where to start.

God _damn_ it.

Chuck stared back at him, bewildered and a little horrified.  What had he done, that Raleigh couldn’t remember it?  Feeling like the worst human on earth, he floundered a bit, looking for a way to phrase this properly. Finally he just charged in head first, just like usual.

“I don’t remember.  It’s just that you both left, and the pills always do my head in, so I must have done something, yeah?  To make you both leave without a word?”

“Jesus, Chuck.”  Raleigh gave in and wrapped his arms around him, pulling him in close. “I’m sorry.”

The Hansens, now also confused, exchanged glances, and Yancy sighed.  Loudly.

“Look, whatever you think happened, that’s not why Raleigh left” Yancy said, obviously trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice.  “He came and got me because _I_ couldn’t sleep and it was keeping him up.  We just went for a drive, that’s all.  This one’s all on me,”

“Were you hurting?” Herc cut in, looking stricken, which was the opposite of what Yancy wanted.  “Why didn’t you wake me up?  I would’ve got your pills for you.”

“No!  Can we drop that?  Chuck didn’t do anything horrible in his sleep and everything’s okay.  I just… I have something to say.”

The elder Becket looked pretty terrible too, to be honest.  Maybe a little worse than Raleigh, even. 

Chuck narrowed his eyes, but Raleigh pressed his fingers over his mouth, shushing him before he could demand Yancy explain himself.  Herc looked like he wanted to make a fuss too, but he had better control.  And tact.  Most social skills, actually.

“Go on,” he encouraged Yancy gently, as if he was suddenly fragile.

“This is not how I wanted this to go,” Yancy muttered, scrubbing his face with his hands.  Shit, he’d had this planned out in his head for how long now?  The scenario had never gone quite like this.  It was probably best to get it over with as quickly as possible now.

He looked at Raleigh pointedly, raising an eyebrow.   Raleigh smiled back, blandly.

Yancy raised both eyebrows and gestured with his eyes towards the door.  Raleigh’s smile broadened, but he didn’t make any move to leave.

“Fine!” Yancy snapped at him, at them, at the world in general.  “None of you can take a hint to save your freaking lives, can you?  I guess it doesn’t matter whether this is private or not.”

“Hey,” Herc soothed, stepping forward, and Yancy grabbed the lapels of his robe, holding him in place.

“No, just let me get it out, okay?”  He was so nervous he felt like he was vibrating out of his skin, and if he gave in to being held by Herc, he wouldn’t do what had to be done.  Not today, at least, and he absolutely didn’t want to go through this all again.  Irritation at whatever drama they’d walked into here buoyed him, helping him keep the quaver out of his voice.  Thank god.

Herc nodded warily, and, shit, this really, _really_ wasn’t the way this was supposed to go.  Before anything else could go wrong, Yancy did it, the thing that had been weighing on his mind for weeks now, ever since Herc moved in and everything in his life turned irrationally great for once. 

He let go and dug in his pocket.

“Look, I’d go down on one knee here, but I’m not sure how well I’d get back up.”  He paused, suddenly mesmerized by how blue Herc’s eyes were, and wondering why he’d opened up with a bad joke about his prosthetic. 

Herc’s eyes started to crinkle a bit at the corners, with concern, and Yancy pressed on.

“I know we’ve only been together for a year and a half now, but I haven’t been this happy, or this content, for longer than I can remember.” 

Raleigh nodded helpfully here, but Yancy didn’t see it, which was probably for the best.

“This thing we’ve got, I don’t ever want it to end.  I mean, I know… I don’t even know what I’d do without you anymore.  I know you think you’re too old for me, and you know I think that’s bullshit, so…  Hercules Hansen, will you marry me?” Convinced that he’d just delivered the worst marriage proposal in the history of marriage, Yancy held out his hand.  A platinum and diamond band sparkled in his palm.

This time it was Chuck who hushed Raleigh, who wanted to congratulate his brother for managing to get the words out without fainting.  It was not, on second thought, the best timing, and he didn’t really object when Chuck silenced him with a hand over his mouth.

Herc’s hand wasn’t trembling when he reached out to take the ring, but it was a near thing.  He held it up to the light as if he had never seen such a marvel before.

“Are you… are you sure?” he asked wonderingly, searching Yancy’s face. 

“Yeah,” his Becket said softly.  “Absolutely sure.”

“Then, hell yes, I’ll marry you, Yancy Becket.”

Their audience had the good taste to turn around and not watch the gentle, and then increasingly passionate, kissing that sealed the deal.  The happiness flooding their respective ghost drifts told the tale anyway.

Leaning in, Chuck kissed his own fiancée softly.  “Is everything really okay?” he asked, just making sure.

“Did you really make me apology waffles?”

“Goddamned right I did.”

Another kiss, perhaps a little longer than the last.  They broke apart and one of those sunrise smiles spread over Raleigh’s face, the kind that Chuck had absolutely no resistance to.

“Then I’d say everything is just about perfect.”

Despite how sappy that was, it got Raleigh kissed again, a little more deeply and definitely involving more tongue this time.

Max huffed and decided that he’d had enough of this foolishness.  Why were they trying to eat each others’ faces when there was bacon?  It took longer than he expected, but barking madly at them all eventually got them sorted out. 

During breakfast there was more foolishness, and a lot of laughter, but every single one of his humans snuck him bacon when they thought the others weren’t looking, and all was right with the world again.

About time.


End file.
